


i will make you see all of the things that we could be

by lhknox



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, Friends to Lovers, Love, Love Confessions, School Reunion, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 19:45:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18999277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lhknox/pseuds/lhknox
Summary: ""I don’t know why I’m putting this in a damn time capsule or whatever and I don’t know who’ll be watching this. I just want future me to know that she better have her shit together. And if you’re there: I’m in love with you, Maggie Sawyer.”"///Alex has spent her life in love with her best friend Maggie. And Maggie's about to find out.





	i will make you see all of the things that we could be

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like ive fallen out of practice writing sanvers but im trying to get back into it. anyway i hope u enjoy and also yes this is vaguely based on the zoey 101 plot lmao

“Why are you being so weird about this reunion?” 

 

They’re in their favourite haunt, a dingy bar just off 83rd and Main when Maggie asks her the question. She’s wearing her signature leather jacket and her hair falls in loose curls and her smile is the only bright thing in the place. Alex sighs as she tries to avoid Maggie’s eye contact. She knows exactly where this line of questioning is going.

 

“I’m not being weird,” Alex says defensively.

 

“That’s what somebody who’s being weird would say.”

 

“I just don’t wanna go, Maggie. It’s not like high school was the best time of my life. There are a lot of things I’d rather forget.”

 

“Oh, but high school was so easy for me?” Maggie rolls her eyes playfully. “I just think it’ll be fun to see everybody again, all our old friends.”

 

“Yeah, because you had friends,” Alex says. “I didn’t. You played soccer and you were popular. I was an outsider.”

 

Maggie throws her head back and laughs loudly. Alex ignores the butterflies that wreak havoc in her stomach and the goosebumps that cover her arms as she hears the melodic charm of Maggie’s laugh. 

 

“Alex, being a lacrosse star doesn’t make you an outsider, it makes you a jock. And you were always at all the best parties, with a whole mess of friends. Anyway, I think I know what this is about.”

 

Alex sighs again. Here it comes.

 

“It’s that damn time capsule.”

 

And in an instant, Alex feels like she’s sixteen again.

 

She’s sixteen and in love with her best friend. 

 

Sixteen and confused about the feelings that seem to make her different from everybody around her.

 

Sixteen and so desperately alone.

 

“You would never tell me what you put in it,” Maggie continues, pulling Alex back to the present.

 

“I barely remember,” Alex lies.

 

“You’re the world’s worst liar. I don’t know how you’re such a good attorney.”

 

“I’m not a bad liar! And lawyers don’t lie!”

 

Maggie just stares at her. 

 

“Fine,” Alex relents. “We lie. But I’m not lying. I don’t remember, truly.”

 

Maggie grins. “Well in that case you’ll wanna come to the reunion as my date so you can find out what you put in there. And you can’t say no because I’ve already told Eliza you’re coming home for the weekend, and Tia Izzie as well.”

 

“Evil. You’re evil.”

 

Maggie’s about to reply when her pager goes off. She frowns as she reads the top of it.

 

“I thought you’re not on call tonight,” Alex says, slowly pushing Maggie’s beer away from her.

 

“I’m not,” Maggie says. “It’s from Amanda.”

 

Alex snorts. “You use your work pager for booty calls?”

 

“I don’t think it’s a booty call,” Maggie mutters. She downs the rest of her beer and grabs her jacket from the seat next to her. “I hate to call it a night but I have to go figure something out.”

 

Alex reaches out to stop her, her hand resting on Maggie’s forearm. She feels Maggie tense under her touch.

 

“Everything okay?” she asks.

 

Maggie gives her a curt nod and a strained smile. “I’ll message you tomorrow.”

 

Alex watches her as she leaves and sighs. 

 

She’s not sure how she’s survived being friends with Maggie for this long. They met in middle school, the day Maggie moved in with her aunt who just happened to be the Danvers’ neighbor. Alex remembers walking with Maggie to her first day of school. She remembers how seamlessly Maggie fit into their friend group and how quickly she became one of the most important people in Alex’s life.

 

More than that, she remembers the moment she realised she was in love with Maggie. It was at Jimmy Olsen’s end-of-summer pool party just before their junior year. At first, Alex had thought the dull ache in her stomach had been from the obscene amount of marshmallows she had eaten. But the longer she watched Maggie with her girlfriend, the more Alex understood.  _ Oh.  _ It wasn’t a stomach ache. It was a heartache. 

 

And once she was done crying over it, she decided that the only way forward was to ignore it. Focus on their friendship. Pretend that everything was normal, that she was normal. Because being anything other than that, well, that was  _ terrifying. _

 

Eleven years later, and her plan is still working. She’s good at playing the supportive best friend and listening to the turmoils of Maggie’s dating life. And on the days she wants to cave in and kiss her, love her, tell her everything, she reminds herself that having Maggie in her life is priceless and something she couldn’t bare to lose.

 

Which means she can’t have the contents of that time capsule released. Alex has spent so long making sure she’s in control of everything, she can’t let it unravel now.

 

///

 

When Kara hears that Maggie and Alex are headed home, Alex knows she’s done for.

 

“We can roadtrip!” Kara exclaims, jostling her glass of wine and spilling a bit on Alex’s couch. “Lena’s away that weekend for a conference and I was gonna force you guys to hang out with me anyway. But this way we can all go back home and visit Eliza and Izzie together.”

 

“And Eliza’s kugel,” Maggie adds wistfully. 

 

“God, it’s gonna be so much fun!”

 

Alex busies herself in the kitchen, wiping up an already clean countertop. 

 

“Alex doesn’t wanna go,” Maggie rats her out. “She’s being a little bitch about it.”

 

“I’m not being a little bitch!” Alex moans, but Kara’s already giving her that ‘just-tell-Maggie-you-love-her’ look, the same one she’s been giving her for years.

 

“You’re not skipping this weekend,” Kara says. “And you’re not using work to get out of it. We’ll have a nice weekend at home for the first time in forever.” She turns to Maggie. “Is Amanda gonna come as your plus one?”

 

“I don’t see why she would,” Maggie says, downing the rest of her wine. “She broke up with me.”

 

“What?” Alex says. “When? Why?”

 

“The other night, when she paged me. Said something about me being a narcissist who spends too much time working and who could never truly make another person happy.”

 

“Wow,” Kara breathes. “What a dick.”

 

“Major dick,” Alex says.

 

“Whatever, I don’t wanna talk about it.” Maggie shrugs, standing up. “But I do think I’m gonna cut this party short. I’m sorry.”

 

Alex has known Maggie long enough to know that she needs her space right now. So she just smiles sadly and says, “Call me if you need anything?”

 

“Always,” Maggie replies. She leans down and rests her chin atop Alex’s head for just a moment too long, the way they used to do when they were in high school. She sighs and stands up, ruffles Kara’s hair, and then she’s gone.

 

Alex holds her breath and counts to five in her head, knowing exactly what’s about to happen.

 

“This is your chance!” Kara explodes, unable to hold it in anymore. Alex smiles.  _ Called it. _ “She’s single, you’re single, and the time capsule gives you the perfect opportunity to bring it up!”

 

“I’m not gonna do that,” Alex says. “I can’t do that.”

 

Kara rolls her eyes. “It’s literally the perfect time! Don’t you want to be happy?”

 

“Who says I’ll be happy?” Alex replies, throwing her hands in the air. “I’m happy now, with Maggie in my life. What happens if things go south? It turns out we don’t work as a couple, and I lose her and I don’t have her in my life anymore. That’s worse than anything else I could possibly think of. I can’t… I can’t risk what happiness I already have, and I can’t risk hers. It wouldn’t be fair of me.”

 

“I don’t know what I have to do to convince you that you deserve to be in love and to be loved.”

 

“I know I deserve it, I just… I just think it’s too selfish.”

 

“Too selfish?” Kara repeats with a small laugh, in a voice that holds so much pity it makes Alex feel ill. “Alex, there is nothing selfish about falling in love.”

 

“Who says?”

 

Kara pauses. She puts her wine glass on the table, and fully turns to face Alex.

 

“Tell me. If you were together, what would you give Maggie? What would you do for her?”

 

Alex doesn’t even have to think. “Everything I have. I’d do and give her everything.”

 

“And you think that’s selfish?”

 

“I think what’s selfish is that I’m just…. Dropping this huge load on her - do  _ not  _ laugh at my poor choice of phrasing - and it’s just out of nowhere. I’m just doing this, what, to make myself feel better? That’s selfish, Kara.”

 

“It makes me sad that you think that, that you can’t see that Maggie is fricking crazy about you and that loving you would never burden her in any way.”

 

Alex doesn’t respond, instead she focuses all of her energy in not crying, not letting the tears fall and ruin her. It doesn’t help when Kara puts her hand on her thigh and softly squeezes it.

 

“It’s okay to be scared,” she says softly. “It’s totally normal and expected. But just remember: the greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”

 

Alex huffs, something between a sob and a laugh. “Have you been watching Moulin Rouge without me?”

 

“You can get mad at me later,” Kara says. “For now, we’re gonna get drunk and stupid.”

 

Alex smiles. “Deal.”

 

///

 

Midvale always smells like saltwater. 

 

It’s a welcome change to the smell of asphalt that plagues National City and it hits the car as soon as they reach the town limits.

 

“It never gets old,” Maggie says from the passenger’s seat. “Smells exactly the same as it did when I first got here.” The town holds a lot of mixed memories for her. She remembers the helplessness she felt when she was first forced to move in with her aunt, and the relief at finding friends in the Danvers sisters almost straight away.

 

And the wave of saltwater and Midvale sand brings it all flooding back.

 

The fear, the fun, the unrequited love.

 

She looks over to Alex in the driver’s seat, her hair ruffled from the ocean breeze, staring intently at the road they drive down. She hasn’t changed much since high school, at least looks wise; her face is basically the same, though her hair shorter and her eyes wiser.

 

It’s the same Alex that had practically saved her in high school, who had kept saving her for the past fifteen years or so. The same Alex that she had been in love with in high school.

 

Falling in love with her had been the easiest thing Maggie had ever done, and quite possibly the stupidest. If she had learned anything from the Eliza Wilkie debacle, it was that falling for your friends only ends in Bad Things. 

 

And so when these feelings started to grow and form shortly after the beginning of freshman year, Maggie did what any logical person: decided to ignore them. For the sake of not losing another best friend. 

 

For the most part, she had been successful; she had moved on and had multiple girlfriends and kept Alex on retainer as her best friend and favorite person in the whole world. But in the quiet moments of their lives, Maggie lets herself feel. She lets herself love Alex more than a friend ever would, she imagines what life would be if she ever admitted things to Alex. 

 

There are days she thinks maybe Alex could like her back, maybe she reserves certain things just for Maggie -- her loudest laugh, her scrunchy-nose smile. But after all this time, Maggie assumes that if Alex had ever felt something for her -- Alex, the bravest person she’s ever known -- she would have said something right now.

 

So she accepts that all they’ll ever be is best friends.

 

“Are you ever gonna tell me what really happened with you and Amanda?” Alex asks, pulling Maggie away from her thoughts.

 

“I did tell you.”

 

Alex chuckles. “I know you well enough to know when you’re holding back. You didn’t tell us everything.”

 

Maggie glances to the backseat, and makes sure Kara’s still fast asleep.

 

“She says I don’t know how to prioritise her, that I spent too much time with you and Kara.”

 

“That’s-- I’m sorry. I had no idea we were monopol--”

 

“Do  _ not  _ finish that sentence. Don’t apologise. If she can’t handle you in my life, she shouldn’t be in it at all.”

 

Maggie feels her heart flutter at the small smile that plays on Alex’s lips. She doesn’t tell her that Amanda had called her out on having feelings for Alex and that Maggie had very much almost nearly broken down and confessed everything to her.

 

Instead she says,

 

“You think Eliza’s made her rugelach for us?”

 

“I think she made them for Kara and will allow us to have one or two out of the batch,” Alex laughs. “I’m a bit glad you convinced me to come this weekend; I haven’t seen Eliza in forever and I guess it’ll be sort of nice to see some high school friends again.”

 

“Do you think we’ve changed at all since high school?” Maggie asks. 

 

“I’d like to think so,” Alex replies. “I’m older, slightly wiser.”

 

“I just always feel like the same scared, dumbass kid getting kicked out of Blue Springs.”

 

“Well to be fair, you’re still a dumbass, so that might explain it,” Alex laughs. 

 

“Oh, ha ha. You know what I mean.”

 

“I feel the same whenever I come home. Like I’m magically gonna turn into my high school self and lose whatever growth or change I’ve had. Which is scary. I like this version of Alex a lot more than the high school version and I don’t wanna lose that.”

 

“High school Alex was pretty cool,” Maggie says, and she reaches out and rests a (somewhat) friendly hand on Alex’s knee. “But I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

 

Alex rests her hand atop Maggie’s, and for a moment they stay like that, buried beneath a silence that neither of them feel the need to break. These are the moments, Maggie thinks, that make whatever they have between them feel like so much more than what it is. 

 

“Are we there yet?” comes Kara’s groggy voice from the backseat, and Maggie retracts her hand faster than she thought was possible. Her cheeks burn red with embarrassment and she wonders why it feels like they just got caught making out under the bleachers or something.

 

“Almost,” Alex replies, her voice oddly strained.

 

Maggie rests her head against the window. It’s gonna be a long weekend.

 

///

 

The school gymnasium is decorated like senior prom, but everybody in the room is significantly older. Alex and Maggie walk in together, casing the joint and seeing who’s there. 

 

“Holy crap, is that Coach Bolton?” Maggie asks, pointing out an older man in a tracksuit. “So glad he dressed up for the occasion.

 

“I gotta go grab a drink,” Alex says, but instead she heads straight to the head of the planning committee.

 

Her arch nemesis, Vicky Donahue.

 

“Hi Vicky,” Alex says, trying to sound as polite as she can. “How are you?”

 

“If you’re here about the video,” Vicky says, her voice still as fucking annoying as it was in high school. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”

 

“Come on, Vicky, please. Maggie’s one of my closest friends, I can’t let her see that tape.”

 

Vicky softens, just for a moment. “I asked the school about it, but they said it’s tradition that everything gets shown. By the time I got to it, they had already edited all the videos together.”

 

“There are other videos?”

 

“About four or so? I’m sorry.”

 

Alex smiles sadly. “It was worth a shot.”

 

“For what it’s worth,” Vicky says. “Maggie always had the biggest crush on you in high school. Everyone knew it.”

 

Alex frowns. “What do you mean?”

 

“I gotta run,” Vicky says, “I just spotted Mr. Vinderstein and I want to say hello before he dies of old age.”

 

As Vicky leaves, Maggie approaches and watches her as she goes.

 

“Were you just talking to Vicky?” she asks. “Has hell frozen over?”

 

“I guess we have changed a bit since high school,” Alex says, trying not to think about how the rest of the night is going to pan out.

 

For the most part, it passes without incident. Alex reconnects with her old teachers and gets to humblebrag about the work she does as a hot shot lawyer. But as the end of the night draws closer, it can only mean one thing: it’s almost time for the capsule.

 

“Can I have everybody’s attention, please?” Vicky calls from the stage. “We opened the capsule a week ago and went through its contents. All of those things are on display in the school corridors, which we can go and look at in a few moments. But lucky for us, a few of you submitted photos and USBs with videos on them.”

 

Alex feels her heart sink.

 

“So it’s time for a trip down memory lane.”

 

The lights turn off and a bright light hits the white screen at the front of the room. A young Jimmy Olsen sits in his bedroom, a poster of Rihanna visible behind him. He begins to talk, his voice still adolescent and higher than the baritone everybody’s come to know. The crowd cheers.

 

Alex pulls on Maggie’s arm. 

 

“We should get out of here,” she whispers.

 

“What are you saying!” Maggie replies. “This is amazing!”

 

Pictures come up on the screen, with some pop song playing over the top of it. Pictures of cheerleaders hanging out, of kids kissing, candids of people doing embarrassing things. And then another video plays, a confession of a few pranks pulled. And it continues on in a cycle of pictures again. Alex knows her video is getting closer.

 

“I need to go,” Alex says, her tone desperate and scared. Maggie turns to face her.

 

“What’s your deal? What’s wrong?”

 

“Just. Trust me, please. I’ll explain everything, I just can’t--”

 

The music fades again. The image changes to Alex, sitting in front of the camera, confessional-style. Grown up Alex feels sick.

 

“Oh my god!” Maggie says with a laugh. “This is what you put in the capsule??”

 

“I have no idea what to say,” young-Alex says in the video. “How am I supposed to think about where I’ll be in ten years when I can barely get through today? And I’m not being dramatic, I just genuinely am struggling. I don’t know how to be normal or how to feel like everything’s gonna be okay. How am I supposed to think or breathe or live with her in my life? I mean, Maggie’s my best friend, but being around her is torture.”

 

Though it pains her, Alex watches Maggie’s reaction, her face falling at the words young Alex is saying. She’s not sure why she’s still standing in there; maybe it’ll be easier to have her life fall to pieces there if she’s there to witness the first explosion. 

 

“People say you don’t stay friends with your high school friends and god, I hope that’s true. Because I’m barely surviving right now.” Young Alex pauses, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I just love her so much. I’m so fucking in love with her. And the only thing more pathetic than me being too cowardly to tell her now is me being twenty eight years old and still pathetically watching her fall in love with people who aren’t me. All I’ve ever wanted was to feel normal And now… I don’t feel normal. I feel scared. And alone. And like I don’t want to be ga-- to be like this. I don’t know why I’m putting this in a damn time capsule or whatever and I don’t know who’ll be watching this. I just want future me to know that she better have her shit together. And if you’re there: I’m in love with you, Maggie Sawyer.”

 

The video ends.

 

The room is silent and Alex can feel everybody’s eyes finding her, and staring at her in pity.

 

“Well there you go,” Alex whispers to Maggie. “Guess I’m pathetic.”

 

“Alex--” 

 

But Alex can’t stand it, the way Maggie looks at her or the way everybody watches them or the gentle murmur that passes through the room.

 

She walks out of the hall, and she doesn’t look back.

 

And once she’s back in her childhood bedroom, still engulfed by her past, she lets herself cry.

  
  


///

 

She convinces Kara to fly her back to National City; she doesn’t think she could stand a car ride with Maggie just yet. 

 

Then, she hides herself away in her apartment, refusing visitors, and not answering Maggie’s calls.

 

And then, worst of all, it goes viral. 

 

One of her idiot classmates took a video of it and posted it online, and now it’s getting retweeted and shared and whatever else by hundreds of thousands of people. And they all know her as the young girl confessing her love.

 

All she does is go to work, eat way too much junk food and listen to way too much Celine Dion.

 

In fact, the only reason she opens her door is because she thinks it’s the pizza she ordered.

 

Her heart sinks when she sees Maggie standing there, pizza in hand.

 

“You get a side gig at Pizza Hut?” Alex asks.

 

“I intercepted the delivery guy on the way in,” Maggie answers. “And you have to let me in because I just paid for your pizza.”

 

Alex rolls her eyes and moves out of the way, letting Maggie into the apartment.

 

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Alex says, walking to the fridge and getting herself a beer. She doesn’t offer one to Maggie.

 

“Too fucking bad,” Maggie says. “It’s been three weeks since the reunion and I’ve let you sulk enough.”

 

“I’m not sulking.”

 

“You’re right, you’re just being a straight up asshole. You haven’t said a word to me in weeks, you made me drive back from Midvale alone, you’re making me handle every fucking Buzzfeed writer on earth by myself. I get it, you’re embarrassed but you don’t have to be.”

 

“I’m not embarrassed,” Alex says, raising her voice. “I’m angry. I’m sad.”

 

“Well you shouldn’t be. It’s just one of those things that happens that you move on from.”

 

“You wouldn’t get it.”

 

“Then try and explain it! God, Alex, I’m your best friend! Why can’t you just nut up and talk to me about it?”

 

“I can’t, okay? This isn’t easy for me. There are just things I don’t wanna explain or ruin… Why can’t you just let it lie?!”

 

“You think you’re the only person in the world who’s had a crush on somebody? Alex, grow up! I’m not letting you just ignore me anymore, you mean too much to me.”

 

“Then just trust that I know what I’m saying.”

 

“What is it? Was having a crush on me too embarrassing? Do I embarrass you?”

 

“No!”

 

“Why, then? Why are you so upset over something that happened when we were kids? Why is this bothering you so much?”

 

“Because I’m still in love with you!” Alex finally bursts. “I never fucking got over it! And I’ve spent my entire life convincing myself I can just be friends with because I wasn’t willing to risk it over trying to be anything more. I can’t lose you as a friend, Maggie. I won’t.”

 

Maggie pauses. “Well for somebody who doesn’t wanna lose me as a friend, maybe you shouldn’t have ignored me for weeks.” She pulls something out of her back pocket and hands it to Alex.

 

It’s a photograph, the two of them in senior year at one of Jimmy’s parties. They have their arms around one another, and bright smiles that sparkle even through the stillness of the photo.

 

“That’s what I put in the time capsule.”

 

“Okay?”

 

“Turn it over.” Alex does as she’s told and flips the photo over and sees Maggie’s chicken scratch handwriting on the back.

 

_ GOALS FOR WHEN I’M TWENTY EIGHT _

_ \- Own my own motorbike _

_ \- Work as a doctor and save lives _

_ \- Marry Alex Danvers _

 

Alex looks back up at her.

 

“It’s always been you, Alex,” Maggie says softly. “And I know what it’s like not to want to risk a friendship, because I didn’t want to risk ours either. I don’t know what I would’ve done if I hadn’t had you for all these years. But now…”

 

“Now?”

 

“Now I’m just sad we’ve wasted all this time dancing around each other when we could’ve been so fucking happy.”

 

“I  _ am _ happy, with you. I always have been.”

 

Maggie smiles. “Ditto. You make me happier than anyone else. And all I want is more of that happiness. Screw being scared and careful. We love each other. We deserve every kind of happy we can get our hands on.”

 

Maggie steps forward, and Alex matches her movement. Before she can think or move or breathe, Maggie’s kissing her. Maggie kisses her and suddenly everything changes. The walls of Alex’s life feel like they’re demolished and rebuilt, this time with Maggie in the very centre of it all. Kissing Maggie is like what Alex was born to do and it feels better than anything she’s done before.

 

Her entire life, their entire friendship, everything has led up to this moment.

 

Maggie loves her.

 

Maggie’s in love with her. 

 

Finally when they break apart, Alex stares down into the deep brown of her eyes and she smiles softly.

 

“So what you’re saying is you like me?”

 

“Yeah,” Maggie laughs. “Always have, always will.”

 

It’s a promise, one made by both Maggie and Alex. They’ve always been in love with their best friend. And they plan on keeping it that way.

 

**Author's Note:**

> im on twitter @lhknox2 and tumblr @murdershegoat


End file.
